What California Supreme Court’s Victory for Yelp Means for Restaurants

On July 2, 2018, the California Supreme Court ruled in Hassell v. Bird that Yelp could not be ordered to remove negative reviews posted by a user.  This decision was hotly contested, and came down to a very close 4-3 ruling.  Ultimately, the court held that Yelp could not be forced to take down negative reviews from users of the website, even if the reviews were found to be defamatory.

The review in this case was a one-star review of a law firm in San Francisco.  A dissatisfied former client wrote a scathing review of her former law firm.  The law firm sued the former client for defamation, but did not name Yelp as a defendant in the lawsuit.  The lower court ruled that the Yelp reviews were defamatory and instructed both the former client and Yelp to take them down. Yelp appealed the order as a non-party to the lawsuit, arguing that being forced to remove a review would place an undue burden and hinder their free speech rights, and violate federal law.  The case garnered…